“Are you too afraid to go back to work? Was there a failing of workplace safety procedures that lead to Dan’s death? Are you afraid this could happen to you?” I asked.
He shook his head, his expression pained.
“Are the others bullying you? Blaming you for the accident? Come on Brandy, give me something!”
“It’s nothing like that!” he said.
“But it’s got something to do with Dan, yeah?”
He nodded.
“Brandy...”
“Sorry, Chelz, I can’t talk about it. It’s too painful.”
I sighed in exasperation. “At least tell me where you’ve been. I know you haven’t been staying with your forager friends.”
That got me another look. “Somewhere no one will find me – a basement under an abandoned house. Now tell me why you’re in this place and why you’re limping.”
Against my better judgement, because I wanted to keep badgering him until he answered my questions to my satisfaction, I told him everything that happened since he ran off, including my efforts to impersonate him and go out foraging. His gaunt face went through a whole gamut of expressions, anger, shock, despair, rage, and finally defeat.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I wanna find those two guys and kill ‘em – slowly – but I...I just can’t deal with it right now. Sorry.” He looked at me apologetically, hoping I’d understand.
I looked at his sallow face and the way his baggy clothes hung loose on his lean frame.
“I can see that.” I took his calloused hands in mine. “But you gotta eat, okay? And I mean properly. Get your strength back pronto, and then you’ll be able to think more clearly.”
“I’m trying, but I can’t keep it down.”
“You sick?” I placed a palm on his forehead, expecting to find him burning up with fever. But no, his skin was cool to the touch.
“Chelz, I know you’re trying to help by foraging, but you gotta stop, okay? It’s too dangerous. And I don’t just mean the Skel. There’s other things out there far more dangerous. And then there’s the Custodians. If they catch you masquerading as me, you’re gonna be in a world of pain. Those prison factories are no place for an innocent girl like you.”
“I’m done being smothered by this place’s rules and regulations, Brandy. I’m just as capable as you guys, and you know it.”
My brother sighed. “Just as capable, yes, but also dangerously naive. You’ve been in my shoes for what, one week? All it’s gonna take is one small slip up and it’s over. You hearing me?”
“I’m the one who took down a Skel and saved the team, Brandy. Not Con, Matt or Jack – even with their years of experience.”
“I don’t doubt your ability, Sis, but stuff’s going down, dangerous stuff that you don’t want to stumble across or get involved in.”
“Stop speaking in riddles and tell me what you’re talking about!”
“I can’t!” He gave me that frustrated look he did when I wouldn’t cooperate. “Now please, stop masquerading as me.”
“Newsflash, we need to eat and pay off Father’s gambling debt. Go back to work and I’ll quit.”
Brandon reached into his pocket and pressed several notes into my hands. “This is all I’ve got on me today. Don’t put it in your room. Hide it somewhere no one will think to look, okay?”
“You got much more? Enough to pay off the eight weeks rent we owe?” I asked, suddenly hopeful. If he did, maybe we could move back to our flat and get away from this hole.
“I’ve got more back at the basement, but not enough to pay off the rent.” He paused and searched my eyes, trying to reach a difficult decision.
“What?”
“Father stole the rest. At least I think he did. I mean, I never saved that much in the first place, but I hid over a thousand in my bedroom. It disappeared a couple of weeks ago,” Brandon said.
“Did you confront him about it?”
“He denied it was him.”
A terrible, insidious thought suddenly flashed into my mind. “Did you have drugs in your room too?”
His eyes widened, and he nodded, clearly ashamed. “Ah, yeah. They disappeared with the money.”
“A dozen white pills in a plastic packet?” I asked.
He nodded. “Wait, are those are the drugs Father had? The ones they arrested him for?”
“So they weren’t his at all?” My mind worked frantically through the implications of what that meant. “So why were they under his bed? Why did he tell the Custodians they were his?”
“Maybe he hid them to stop me using them, and then owned up to them to stop me taking the fall?”
“You didn’t dob him in to the Custodians, did you?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Don’t be daft, Chelz! Why would I do that?” He was genuinely shocked by my accusation.
“So who tipped off the Custodians then? I don’t get it. Who else could have known he had your drugs under his bed?” I was even more baffled than I had been before.
“Mother?”
I shook my head. “No way. She can’t stand the sight of him, but she wouldn’t cut off the family’s only breadwinner just to spite him.”
“I don’t know, he was giving Mother less and less money all the time. Maybe she got sick of it.”
I thought of my mother and her shocked reaction when they found the drugs under his bed. I was sure it wasn’t her. “I don’t believe it.”
“You’re going to keep impersonating me, aren’t you? Regardless of what I say?” Brandon asked a moment later.
“Until you come back to work, I don’t have any choice.”
I could tell he wanted to come back so I didn’t have to, but he just couldn’t face it. “Okay. Look, I’m sure you’ll be fine, you’re just as capable as me–”
“Just as?”
“Okay, probably more so. Certainly more motivated. Just keep your wits about you, and don’t get involved with Con and the others. Keep them at arm’s length. I’ll let you know as soon as I can return to work. Okay?”
“Got it. We’re in Room 505 on the fifth floor, by the way.”
Brandon nodded and gripped my shoulder. “I’d better go before someone sees me. Thanks for stepping up and looking after Mother and Karen.”
I wrapped my arms around him, noticing how much less there was of him. “Thanks. Now go and eat something. If you can’t eat much at a time, nibble all day. Get your strength back!”
He returned the hug, scaled the fence, and was gone. I listened for the slightest evidence of his footfalls outside in the street, but got nothing. He was like a ghost!
I hobbled back into the building, wondering how Mother would react to the news that Brandon finally turned up but was in no condition to help us. One good thing came out of the conversation though. I knew why he ran away now.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I had to massage the life back into my thighs just to be able to get out of bed when I woke. After that, I walked around the apartment, stretching as much as I was able. There was no way I was going to let those thugs stop me from going to work.
I threw down a barely nutritious meal from the kitchen downstairs and left for work an hour earlier than normal. Turned out to be a wise decision, as I had to stop frequently to rest my legs in spite of my determination to keep walking no matter how much it hurt.
In the end, I distracted myself from the near-crippling pain by replaying mother’s reaction to Brandon’s reappearance over and over in my mind. As expected, she didn’t take it well, spending hour after hour venting her frustration and anger. And not just at Father this time, but at Brandon too – the first time I recalled her doing so. Oh, and at men in general. Men were useless, unreliable, and cowards who were unable to get back on their feet when life tripped them up. I tried to stick up for Brandon, but barely got a word in edgeways.
* * *
“Whoa, Brandon, what happened to you?” Ryan asked when I hobbled into the Recycling W
orks. He was standing awkwardly beside Matt and Jack, with zero conversation going on.
“Tried using the stairs this morning and tripped. Got myself a whole new batch of bruises.” I spoke gruffly and snorted as though amused.
“You weren’t happy with the ones the Skel gave you?” Jack asked.
“Nah, you can never get enough of a good thing.”
“You tripped down the stairs? This from the guy who owned a Skel?” Matt stared at me sceptically.
The door to the office swung open and Con strode out. He took one look at me walking and shook his head. “I don’t even want to know.”
He clambered into the truck, got behind the wheel, and stuck his head out the window. “In case you’ve forgotten, today’s the day those idiots from the manufacturies are staging their stop-work protest. Need I remind you that we don’t want to be here when things go pear shaped.”
“Stop-work protest?” Ryan asked as he climbed into the truck.
“You didn’t hear about that?” Matt asked, all innocent like.
I forgot he wasn’t there in the Foragers’ Club that night Richardson dropped in to see us.
“Nope.”
“Well, you didn’t miss nothing. Just a bunch of twits from a factory or two trying to stir up trouble,” Con snapped. “Now quit your chatter and get in!”
Jack bounced into the truck and noticed me eyeing the step dubiously. “Need a hand, Hermie?”
“Hermie?” I gave him my best Brandon-style death stare.
“You know, for hermaphrodite,” Matt whispered loudly into my ear as he pushed past and climbed into the cab, forcing Jack aside.
“The backpack was my sisters!” So much for hoping they would forget about the sanitary pad.
“We believe you, Hermie.” Jack chuckled and hi-fived Matt.
“You two are so dead!” My face went red with embarrassment. Was I ever going to live down that minor slip up?
Ryan gave me a sympathetic smile from where he sat beside Con.
“You and whose army, Hermie?” Matt laughed.
This was going to be a long day.
Con dropped off me and Ryan in the street we worked yesterday. He whispered they had to do another shift at the lab, and then announced aloud for Ryan’s benefit that they’d work some houses a couple of streets away. After that, they drove off.
“Alone again,” Ryan grunted.
“Yep.”
He shrugged, and we got to work. The door on the first townhouse we tried was stuck fast, so we climbed in through the shattered front window. We were in a long, narrow lounge-room with a cracked plasma-TV and sofas that used to be beige but were turning brown. The plaster walls were damp and covered by large patches of yellow and black mould that stank like rotten eggs.
“This place reeks!” I held my sleeve over my nose.
“Upstairs first then?” Ryan suggested, pointing to the iron spiral staircase at the back of the room.
“Stairs?” My spirits sank, thinking of how much the climb would hurt my thighs.
“Oh, right. You supposedly took a tumble down the stairs this morning.”
“Supposedly? I did!” I tried to look offended.
“Come on Brandon, those stooges may have bought your story, but it’s got more holes in it than a leaky boat.”
“It’s no story.” I glared at him, irritated now.
He took a step closer. “You keep massaging your thighs and rubbing your side, but not your arms. That sound like injuries someone would get falling down stairs?”
“What are you, a detective?”
“I’m just concerned, that’s all. Come on, tell me what really happened.” His genuine, caring expression almost cracked my defences. I wanted to tell him the truth, but would die from humiliation if I did – he would learn about my father’s gambling habits and that we lived in the homeless shelter.
“Fell. Down. Stairs.”
“Thought we were man enough to be honest with each other.”
“Really. Let’s talk about you, then.” I stuck my chin out defiantly. Two could play this game.
“What about me?”
“What happened at your last job? Why did you quit?”
Ryan looked exasperated. “This isn’t about me, Brandon. It’s about your inexplicable injuries. Considering your history, I’m worried you may have gotten yourself into some hot water.”
“What history? What exactly are you implying?”
“Your father – the drugs? Whoever he got them from aren’t your average model citizens. They’re scum without a conscience. If you’re involved with them somehow, I can understand your reluctance to talk about it.”
Man, he was getting close with these guesses! Too close. I had to deflect him somehow. “I already told you I didn’t know he was taking them, let alone where he got them from. Can’t you just accept I fell down the stairs and leave it at that?”
“No. As I said, I’m worried about you.”
“Well, don’t be! I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
‘You can be a right pain in the butt, you know that?” He threw his arms in the air.
“Me? What about your refusal to talk about your last job. Oh, let me guess, it’s too painful to talk about.”
“Actually, it is.”
“In that case, it’s too painful to talk to you too. About anything.” I turned my back on him and hobbled off to look for paper.
A moment later, he stomped up the stairs, muttering to himself about how frustrating and annoying I was. Tough.
We didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the day, just tip toed around each other as we did our jobs. We even ate our lunches separately.
“Something happen between you two?” Jack asked when we were tossing the paper into the back of the truck when they came back to pick us up at five.
“Oh shut up,” I snapped.
“Okay, Hermie.”
A book hit the back of Jack’s head.
“Oi!”
I sat up front next to Con on the way back, still fuming.
* * *
“That’s not good,” Matt said when we got back to town.
“What’s not good?” Con demanded.
“There’s a squad of Custodians outside the gates,” I said.
“Guess their stop-work protest didn’t go down as planned,” Jack said.
Con brought the truck to a stop a good five meters from the gates and quickly addressed us. “If they start asking questions, we didn’t know about the protest, got it?”
“What does it matter if we did?” Jack asked.
Matt knocked on Jack’s head. “Anything in there, or is it just space for rent? Think, man! What do you reckon the Custodians will do if they find out we knew about the protest but didn’t report it?”
“Oh.” Realisation dawned on Jack’s youthful face.
“Out of the truck and line up!” bellowed the Custodian sergeant. As he came closer, two of his men went around to the back of the truck. I moaned inwardly when I realised it was Sergeant King. Again. What was with this guy – were our meetings coincidences or was he deliberately on my case?
We climbed slowly out of the truck and lined up in front of it. I made sure I didn’t stand next to Ryan. I had had enough of his hypocritical attitude today, not to mention he was getting too close to the truth.
“What have you model citizens been up to today?” King looked directly at me as he spoke.
“We’ve been foraging, Sir.” Con’s voice bordered on insolence.
“Is that right?” King mocked.
The Custodians who went to the back of the truck returned. “Truck’s full of books and paper, Sir.”
King seemed moderately surprised. “Any of you know about this stop-work protest?”
“Protest, Sir?” Con replied.
“Cut the bull, Dimitriou. I know you foragers always have your finger on the pulse.” King stepped closer, giving Con a taste of his own standover tactics.
King came over to me. “What about you, Thomas – anything to add?”
“About what, Sir?” I gave him a sickly sweet smile. The one Brandon used to drive me nuts when he made fun of me. Something he did a lot. A sign of affection in his case.
“One of these days...” King’s voice trailed off, but his animosity was unmistakable. He had it in for us. For me. “Right then, back in the truck and follow us to the Recycling Works. You will be spending the night there.”
“Excuse me, Sir?” I stepped forward, alarmed. I couldn’t leave my mother and sister alone. What if Deacon and his pet dinosaur dropped in?
“The town’s in a state of lock-down,” the sergeant replied, revelling in the discomfort it caused us. “No one is permitted on the streets for any reason.”
“But–”
“Drop it, Brandon,” Matt whispered, propelling me towards the truck. “Nothing good’s going to be gained by antagonising him further.”
“My family–”
“Can survive a night without you. Now move!”
Jack grabbed my arm and pulled me after him. “Come on, mate, Matt’s right.”
I climbed into the cab after him, but not after a glance at Ryan. I was surprised to see him studying me carefully, no doubt trying to ascertain the reason I was so desperate to get home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What’s going on, Boss?” Con demanded when we were back in the Recycling Works yard in front of the office entrance. We were with all the other foragers – there were over forty of us. Sergeant King had shepherded us to the yard and left. I could hear Custodian vehicles patrolling the streets outside, though – Bushmaster Armoured Mobility vehicles and G-Wagons.
Trajan Barclay stood on the office steps, looking extremely flustered.
“We really gonna spend the night locked in here?” I asked.
“What are we supposed to eat – recyclables?” Gerry asked. He worked in one of the metals foraging teams, apparently.
Trajan held up his hands. “All I know is that a handful of factories over near the markets went on some sort of strike, demanding certain concessions be met before they would go back to work.”
Impersonator (Forager Impersonator - A Post Apocalyptic Trilogy Book 1) Page 15